Share this article

Erasmus laments Munster’s soft defence

Munster boss Rassie Erasmus believes his side's defeat against Leinster at the weekend could affect their confidence.

The Limerick-based outfit suffered a 25-14 loss to Leinster in Dublin and Erasmus stated that a loss like that can bring the side down.

"There's no way a loss doesn't knock your confidence, for any team, and we will have to do a proper analysis," Erasmus told the Limerick Leader.

"I can tell you now, the bottom line was if you give them 14 points, you're going to lose by 14 points. That wasn't hard work for them to get those 14 points, so although it will hit confidence a little bit, the reality check would be don't do stupid things like that.

"The step up, definitely intensity wise, (was) higher than previous games, but as a reality check, if you're going to give them 14 points, you're going to lose the game by 14 points on a platter. So, for me, that's the reality.

"If we go away against Leinster, and lose by 14 by just giving them, then if you don't learn from that then the next two, three games will be really tough for us.

"Intensity wise it was up, but I didn't think it was something we shouldn't be able to handle, I thought we could have handled that much better."